This guy's gonna pay for bringing a baseball bat to a gunfight.

We’ve all got a dark side. Whether it’s rush-hour traffic or a snotty boss, something gets under your skin and makes you want to turn furniture into firewood. But when Jackie Estacado pops the cork on the Darkness — the sinister presence he’s kept bottled up inside him since the last game — the result is no mere tantrum: it’s the most perversely invigorating horror shooter in ages.

The Darkness has blessed and cursed Jackie’s family for generations, and as this sequel opens, he’s used this supernatural abomination to seize the mantle of Mafia Don at age 21. Rivals tend to quiet down when you can sprout razor-toothed “Demon Arms” from your back to stab, split, and mutilate anyone who gets in your face. Your custom-tailored threads come with a bull’s-eye, though: a secret society intends to yank the Darkness out of you, and they might just be powerful enough to manage it.

Your Darkling friend likes to humiliate enemies and goof around.

As you hunt their servants through the likes of a seedy strip club and a run-down amusement park, you’ll perforate prey with a satisfying selection of dual-wielded small arms and two-handed peacemakers, all held in your human hands. That’s only half the fun, of course. Using the shoulder buttons to independently control each Demon Arm, you can use one arm to slice an enemy in two, the other to hurl a rebar rod that spears someone to a wall, while your human arms shoot out light sources that’ll temporarily banish your serpentine limbs.

The Darkness II’s solo campaign lacks any truly epic boss battles, but you’ll hardly notice when every second overflows with unapologetically bloody mischief. It never gets old, not least of all because every stylish kill earns “Essence” that you’ll spend on awesome new abilities. Toss your otherwise autonomous Darkling companion at foes, unleash distracting insect swarms, summon enemy-sucking black holes, or just give yourself more ammo and a thick second skin of unholy armor, for instance.

The gruesome execution sequences couldn't be much more graphic. Rip off enemies' heads (shown), tear foes in half, or burst from their stomach Alien-style.

Yet for all your wondrous talents, your sensitivity to light adds an engaging weakness: you never know when thugs might carry shoulder-mounted floodlights or flashbang grenades. Better yet, while your objectives usually entail just getting to the next waypoint, the action never feels directionless. An engrossing story that wisely avoids the dull side-missions and deserted hub zones of the first game will make you question Jackie’s sanity throughout, while vivid, stylized graphics capture the flavor of the comic books. The only real disappointment is the campaign’s fleeting six-hour duration, along with how seldom Mike Patton’s marvelously deranged growls give voice to the Darkness.

J.P. Dumond provides cover as Jimmy butchers a fallen foe's heart.

Once you finish Jackie’s adventure, you’ve got four other disturbed wingnuts to meet: the playable characters in the game’s two-hour co-op campaign. You can tackle it alone offline, but you’ll have a hellacious good time if you hook up with a few friends over Live. Inugami, Shoshanna, Dumond, and Jimmy aren’t as powerful as Jackie, but each packs a unique weapon (sword/gun/staff/axe), a particular rechargeable Darkness power (swarms/gun-channeling/black holes/Darklings), and his or her own upgrade tree. Reviving comrades can be unnecessarily fussy about where you stand — occasionally, your corpse will even land in an unreachable spot — but otherwise, multiplayer is a habit-forming blast.

The Darkness II’s copious gore might upset sensitive stomachs, but it’s vastly superior to its predecessor in every respect, spinning a frantic, fantastic neo-noir nightmare you won’t want to end. Even those who ordinarily dismiss horror with a shake of the head should give it a shot.

PUBLISHER: 2K Games  •  DEVELOPER: Digital Extremes  •  ESRB: Mature  •  MULTIPLAYER: 2–4 in co-op over Xbox Live  •  ACHIEVEMENTS: Rewarding  •  COST: $60

On Xbox 360

+ Gameplay expertly mixes gunplay, melee carnage, and avoiding light sources.

+ Diverse range of upgrades; absorbing story with minimal distractions; addictive co-op.

– Short main campaign; minor revival woes in co-op campaign; not enough Mike Patton voiceovers.

? Why does your pet Darkling wear a cat’s hide like a hat?

9.0